When it comes to logistics, the folks at Trans Global Supply pretty much wrote the book.

Fifty years ago, brothers Bill and Dick Scott started their own rail maintenance business, Econo-Rail, in Port Arthur with just $3,500 and a pickup truck. But the business just kept expanding, into in-plant switching and terminal operations and eventually building and maintaining more than 30 railroad terminals.

It changed its name along the way and added a new generation of family. Today, TGS operates Cedar Port, the largest master-planned rail-and-barge served industrial park in the United States.

“Over a third of all containers going through the Port of Houston are either imported or exported through Cedar Port,” Port Commissioner Stephen DonCarlos said as he introduced James Scott at the May 3 Baytown Chamber of Commerce meeting.

James Scott, Bill’s son, is both Chairman of this year’s Chamber of Commerce Board of Director and President of Construction and Maintenance at TGS overseeing operations at Cedar Port.

It sits on 15,000 acres of land on the east side of Cedar Bayou in Baytown’s extra-territorial jurisdiction. The land now includes 25 million square feet of warehouses and is home to the more than 100 miles of railroad with room to store up to 5,500 rail cars on a single day. It has two barge ports.

The warehouses TGS builds and owns are leased to more than 70 different companies who manufacture, process, warehouse and ship everything from chickens and cotton to water to chemicals for cell phone batteries.

Walmart leases 5.6 million square feet of space in four warehouses, including one to handle its e-commerce and they ship goods to supply their stores throughout the central United States. Home Depot has the second-most warehouse space, 2 million square feet.

A company called Floor and Décor has 1.5 million square feet of warehouse space with an ever-changing inventory of floor and décor goods.

NFI is a trans-shipping company that receives goods from all over the world in shipping containers from the Port of Houston and transfers the goods to trucks headed for Target stores. Niagara bottles water at its park site.

The two biggest plastic traders in the world, Rivago and Vinmar, operate adjacent warehouses.

“Last year, we packaged inside Cedar Port and exported out through the Port of Houston over 4 billion pounds of plastic,” James Scott said. “It’s just mind-blowing when you think about it.”

Cedar Port is also home to several cold storage facilities.

“Americold is exporting chickens from East Texas out through the Port of Houston to around the world,” Scott said. “Maersk is actually importing beef from Australia. You know those little oranges at H-E-B? They all come in through the Foremost Fresh facility.

“Cargill is taking cotton from south Texas, packaging it and then exporting it out. They’ll send that cotton to China. And then we’re bringing it right back as shirts. It’s really good for the Port.”

At least three warehouses are doing work involved with the construction of plants in the Port Arthur and Sabine Pass area; Construction managers Zachary, Bechtel and the Golden Pass LNG all are leasing space where they receive parts and assemble large projects for the Golden Triangle plants.

Often, their completed projects are put on barges to travel from Cedar Port to Port Arthur down the Intracoastal barge canal.

The Cedar Park Navigation Improvement District barge dock is the where the completed projects for the LNG plants are shipped from and where Texas Materials receives its liquid asphalt and aggregate that it uses in its Baytown asphalt plant.

“We’ve developed about 5,000 acres total, and we still have a little over 10,000 acres remaining to be developed,” Scott said. “So we’ve got a lot of work still to do and we’ve got plenty of job security over the next 30 years.

“We hope to add on to Baytown.”